FTC: It Takes Criminals Just 9 Minutes to Use Stolen Consumer Info

Federal Trade Commission experiment lured hackers to learn about how they use stolen consumer information.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC)'s Office of Technology conducted an experiment to learn how hackers use stolen information. Experts created a database of fake consumer credentials and posted them twice on a site that hackers use to make stolen data public.

This false information was made realistic by using popular names based on Census data, US-based addresses and phone numbers, common email address naming strategies, and one of three types of payment info (online payment service, bitcoin wallet, and credit card). Following the second posting of fake data, it took hackers just nine minutes to try and access it.

There were more than 1,200 attempts to access the information, which hackers tried to use to pay for things like food, clothing, games, and online dating memberships. The FTC advises consumers to stay safe with two-factor authentication, which prevented the thieves from gaining access.

Dark Reading's Quick Hits delivers a brief synopsis and summary of the significance of breaking news events. For more information from the original source of the news item, please follow the link provided in this article. View Full Bio

No, I don't think so. I think what the piece is trying to communicate is that once they had already accessed the information, they took mere minutes to use the compromised information. The 9-minute figure has nothing to do with the breach itself.

Most enterprises are using threat intel services, but many are still figuring out how to use the data they're collecting. In this Dark Reading survey we give you a look at what they're doing today - and where they hope to go.

Published: 2017-05-09NScript in mpengine in Microsoft Malware Protection Engine with Engine Version before 1.1.13704.0, as used in Windows Defender and other products, allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code or cause a denial of service (type confusion and application crash) via crafted JavaScript code within ...

Published: 2017-05-08unixsocket.c in lxterminal through 0.3.0 insecurely uses /tmp for a socket file, allowing a local user to cause a denial of service (preventing terminal launch), or possibly have other impact (bypassing terminal access control).

Published: 2017-05-08Improper checks for unusual or exceptional conditions in Brocade NetIron 05.8.00 and later releases up to and including 06.1.00, when the Management Module is continuously scanned on port 22, may allow attackers to cause a denial of service (crash and reload) of the management module.

Published: 2017-05-08Nextcloud Server before 11.0.3 is vulnerable to an inadequate escaping leading to a XSS vulnerability in the search module. To be exploitable a user has to write or paste malicious content into the search dialogue.